HIST 475 Fall 2012 Modern Warfare and Military Leadership Cross Listed as LEAD475

From the early nineteenth to the twenty-first century, modern history has been marked by numerous wars fought by nation states. Some of these wars were enormously destructive. Some changed history decisively on a continental or global scale. This modern period of warfare witnessed rapid and dramatic changes in the manner military forces were organized, armed, and led, and in their scale and lethalness. From the smoothbore musket to the machine gun, sailing warships to dreadnaught battleships, horse-pulled artillery to the atomic bomb, submarines under the seas and warplanes in the skies, to rockets and smart weapons, war rapidly evolved and continues to evolve today. This course will study these developments, concentrating on conflicts like the Napoleonic wars, the American Civil War, World War I and World War II, with special emphasis upon the evolution of military leaders like Napoleon, Grant and Lee, Moltke, Churchill and Roosevelt, Stalin and Hitler, Nelson and Doenitz, Eisenhower and MacArthur. Is it leadership that provides the key to our understanding of modern warfare? Or is it technology? Or certain "timeless" military principles that transcend local historical contexts? Can history help us foresee the future of warfare?

Class Format: seminar

Requirements/Evaluation: evaluation will be based on a substantial (no upper limit) research paper on a topic of the student's choice, growing out of some aspect of the course

Additional Info: participants will also, in teams of two or three, lead class discussion at least once, as well as give class reports on the course readings

Additional Info2: not available for the Gaudino option and cannot be taken Pass/Fail